Harvard would repeatedly, fall behind early and not be able to overcome those deficits.

One only has to look at the 7-6 Beanpot loss on February 6 to Boston College. Harvard fell behind 4-0 in an awful first period and then battled back only to fall one goal short.

There were games where the whole package was there--a 5-3 win at RPI on February 24, and an 8-3 clubbing of St. Lawrence on March 3 come to mind. Even in a 5-4 loss to Clarkson on March 4, the Crimson played extremely well, and that performance gave Harvard confidence once again as it headed into the post-season.

The Crimson's effort was solid in the playoffs against RPI, but it just wasn't meant to be. Harvard ran into a hot goaltender and was unable to find the back of the net.

Next year is eight months away, but as the saying goes, hope springs eternal. Harvard has a strong recruiting class and many talented players coming back for the 1995-96 season, but they will have to step up their production if the team is to be successful.

However, the Crimson will lose eight players to graduation: forwards Martins, Perry Cohagan, captain Ben Coughlin, Cory Gustafson and Keith McLean; defensemen Brian Lonsinger and Michel Breistroff; and goaltender Steve Hermsdorf.

Those seniors (except Breistroff, who took last year off) leave the same way they came in--with a loss to RPI in the ECAC quarterfinals. But they won three straight ECAC regular-season titles, the 1993 Beanpot, and the 1994 ECAC tournament; they qualified for two consecutive NCAA tournaments and came just one goal away from playing in last year's national championship--not too shabby.

The team as a whole this year played hard, right to the end. The sad thing is that they couldn't put it all together.

"It's just too bad that they worked so darn hard, and they can't see the results," Tomassoni said. "They worked right to the very end--I feel badly for them."

"Overall, I can't ask for more of an effort than the guys gave."